Students from Pearl Academy and Universidad Tecnológica de México win the 2015 James McGuire Competition

Pearl Academy undergraduate student Kartik Verma, with his project Assuage Mom, and Universidad Tecnológica de México (UNITEC) graduate students Roberto Armando Alvarado Yañez and Adrián Esteban Ramírez Gómez, with their project ICH, are the winners of their respective categories in the 2015 Global James McGuire Business Plan Competition. Each team will receive a $50,000 low-interest loan to fund the businesses outlined in their plans and presentations. The finalist teams who participated in the five-day event, held concurrently with the annual Laureate Leadership Summit in Miami included:

Thirty teams submitted business plans for the undergraduate and graduate/working adult categories. An internal selection committee of Laureate faculty and executives evaluated the plans and chose three teams per category that participated in the finals in Miami.

During the five day competition in Miami, student teams presented their business ideas to each other; attended a workshop on presentation skills, received three days of coaching and feedback and presented their plans in a formal interview with an external selection committee comprised of the following business leaders:

James H. McGuire, former board member, Laureate Education, Inc.

Todd Benson, former board member, Laureate Education, Inc

Meredith McPherron, former director, The Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School

Felipe Fabris, knowledge and content manager at Endeavor Brazil

The Global James McGuire Business Competition was launched in 2007 by Douglas L. Becker, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Laureate Education, Inc. to honor Mr. James H. McGuire, a former member of Laureate’s Board of Directors, and to foster entrepreneurship among students.